JazzletterFCD. I5, I982 Vol. 1 No. 7

Down Beat DaysSibelius, reputedly, was the author ofthe observation that “no oneever erected a monument to a critic.” Whoever said it first,musicians have repeated it with relish ever since. Society has notof course been conspicuously generous with monuments tomusicians, either.

One can understand an artist's resentment of the critic. Hiscareer, his very livelihood, can hang on the opinion of someonewinay or may not know what he is talking about and, evenas ing that he does, whose esthetic philosophy may or may notaccord with his own. And some critics, I grant, are blitheringidiots. But criticism, for all its faults, is, as Virgil Thomson put it,“the only anitdote we have to paid publicity." And musicians andother artists incline to slight the serious work done on their behalfby men they rarely bother to thank. The writings over the years ofLeonard Feather, John S. Wilson, and Whitney Balliett—to saynothing of the scholars and commentators in Europe—have givenjazz the chronicle the musicians themselves never bothered towrite. It is valuable beyond estimate, and Leonard's Encyclopediaof Jazz, the later editions of which have been written incollaboration with Ira Gitler, is in itself a monumental work towhich future generations will owe an enormous gratitude.Incidentally, Leonard is feeling discouraged about hisencyclopedias and the difficulty of gaining adequate distributionfor them, and thinking that he may not produce an Encyclopediaof Jazz in the Eighties. We will all be the less if he doesn't.

Last month in Chicago, a critic died. He was my friend. As ithappens, I‘m the one who turned him into a critic. With alldeference to Mr. Sibelius, I would like to say a few words aboutD‘DeMicheal.

I met Don in Louisville, Kentucky, shortly after I joined the staffof the Louisville Times as its classical music critic. I got the jobonly because one of the reporters, assigned to review a concert bythe Louisville Orchestra, fell asleep and then panned theperformance of something by Beethoven when in fact there hadbeen a last minute program change and the orchestra had playedTchaikovsky. On the reasoning that the paper needed someonewho knew a little more about music than that, or at least cared alittle more about it, Norman Isaacs, the managing editor,imported me from the Montreal Star. (The reporter whosemoment of somnolence changed the course of my life is now oneof the finest correspondents of the New York Times.)

I settled into my job and eventually became drama and moviecritic, and entertainment editor as well. My principle assignmentwas covering the Louisville's Orchestra's program ofcommissioning and recording new music by contemporaryclassical composers. For three years I assiduously attended notonly the concerts but the rehearsals too. I would hang out with themusicians from the orchestra and discuss the new pieces in detail.Most of them did not like most of themusic very much, but a gig isa gig and they played it and played it well. It was during this timethat a suspicion dawned on me that the European classical-music

tradition was, if not ended, at least seriously off the rails.The moment I hit town, of course, I began searching out the

local jazzers. I became friends with an excellent pianist namedDon Murray, with whom I studied harmony and composition.Don played in a trio with a bassist-lawyer named Gene Klingmanin a downtown bar called Riney's. At some point I mentioned thatI had done a little singing, and they asked me to sit in. The peopleapparently approved, because they would ask me to do it nightafter night. So reticent was I that I would sit on the piano benchbeside Don, scroonched down so no one could see me. I reallydidn't know what I was doing in those days and, I suspect, I hadterrible time. In my insecurity I would wait for the chord and thenmake the phrase. I can‘t bear that kind ofbehind-the-beat singing,which is why I have no taste for a certain style ofjazz singer.

Don and Gene had a friend, a vibes player and drummer namedDon De Micheal. De Micheal had a group that played for dancersin some little roadhouse out on the edge of town. The groupsounded not unlike the Modern Jazz Quartet, which was perhapsinevitable in view of its instrumentation and De Micheal'sadmiration for Milt Jackson. I liked Don‘s playing. I liked hisdrumming, too: it had a loose, comfortable, Cliff Leeman kind offeeling. Don had a peculiar habit. He always played drums in hisstocking feet. I have never seen another drummer do that. He saidit enabled him to feel the pedals better. He used to drive his carthat way too.

There was something interesting about him, something hidden,and I got to know him better. It required a little pulling. Perhapsthis had to do with the fact that he was Italian, by ancestry, in anarea in which there did not seem to be many Italians. And he wasby birth that very rare bird, an Italian Protestant. So Isuppose hewas an almost perfect example of the outsider, at least in that partof the country. But there was something more, although I didn'tknow it then: Don had an intelligence that he had not yet-foundthe courage to explore.

Don‘s love of jazz was as deep as that of anyone I have everknown. He had a wonderful collection of old 78 records, some ofthem extremely rare. Finally I asked how he had acquired it. Hetold me that when he was a little boy, he would go into the coloredneighborhoods of Louisville to knock on doors and ask people ifthey had any old phonograph records they didn‘t want. And inattics and basements he uncovered forgotten treasures and boughtthem for five or ten cents each. I wonder what some of thosepeople thought of the little black-haired white boy who wasinterested in such old music.

Those were bebop days, and like so many others among us, Ihad limited interest in the older jazz. Don loved it all, and played itall. One day I was denigrating Dixieland, laying out the reasons Ifound it uninteresting, and Don said mildly, “That's all true, Isuppose. But it sure is fun to play.” That brought me up short, andevery musician to whom I have quoted that remark has agreedwith him. (A few years after that, at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Iheard Zoot Sims say that he rather liked the Dukes of Dixieland.Two or three other musiciansjumped on him, demanding to knowhow he could possible like their music. “Well, you know me,”Zoot said. “I haven't got very good taste.” Zing.)

Copyright 1982 by Gene Lees

Myjob at the paper was in some ways uncomfortable. NormanIsaacs, in addition to being managing editor, was president of theLouisville Orchestra. The Rockefeller Foundation hadcommitted substantial moneys to pay for its commissions and itsrecordings. And the more I studied that music, the more it seemedlike an intelligently structured emptiness. Years later inHollywood, Hugo Friedhofer dismissed Elliott Carter with onebrief, harsh phrase: “Rich boy's music." It was a description thatfit much of what the Louisville Orchestra was playing: certainlylittle of it was music that aspired to communicate to people.

To tell what I thought to be the truth about it, however, I had toword my reviews very carefully since I was under the command ofa man who was president of that orchestra.

Rolf Liebermann came to town for the premiere of an opera ofhis based on Moliere's School for Wives.I had already becomeaware of the diplomatic skills of many of the contemporary“serious” composers and Mr. Liebermann was a master politicianwho, in a few days, had successfully charmed the entire musicalestablishment of Louisville, including Mr. Isaacs.

I attended rehearsals and then the performance, andll thoughtthat that opera was one of the most boring pieces of crap I hadever heard. But I knew that I would not be allowed to say so. Andso I resorted to the tactic of damning by faint praise. And Mr.Isaacs, thinking that I could not possibly be right in my lack ofenthusiasm for so eminent and respected a composer, re—editedmy copy, removing all my reservations, all my “rathers” and“somewhats" and “howevers", so that the review was deftlytransmuted into a glowing one.

The opera later went on to New York, where the critics, to myconsiderable satisfaction, tore it to pieces. Mr. Isaacs later alsowent on to New York where he is now chairman of the NationalNews Council, which examines complaints of malpractice inAmerican journalism.

The situation was anomolous. The paper—meaning Mr.Isaacs—had no interest in jazz. I was not allowed to write articlesabout Don DeMicheal or Don Murray, because they worked inbars, for money. The Louisville Orchestra, however, was a non-profit organization, and therefore I could write about that andindeed was required to. I did manage to establish a weekly recordcolumn, in which I got away with reviewing a certain amount ofjazz along with the classical music. But it seemed to me strange

SurprisesThings I‘ve learned from the Jazzletter:0 A high portion of jazz musicians and jazz fans can type—about 40 percent.0 Jazz musicians are extremely stable people. Out of asampling of 400 Los Angeles jazz and studio players, onlyfour had"n=roved between I978 and I980, according to theiraddresses as listed in the union book. One of them movedonly two blocks. Chico O‘FarriIl has lived at the sameaddress in New York for I8 years.0 Doctors are jazz fans out of proportion to their presencein the population. A lot of doctors write poetry.v Jazz fans tend to be of high income, high accomplishment,high intelligence, and broadinterests. A lot of successfulbusinessmen are former musicians.v Five‘lI get you ten I am the only man in the world who hasread the Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago union booksfrom cover to cover. Joan Jett, Lenin Castro, ByzantineChrist, and Eddie R. Zip are all members of Local 47.Lothar Beer is a member of 802.

that in the United States, a nation in which profit is almost areligion, the non-profit could get all the free coverage it wanted.Indeed this is true today, and if you can have yourself declared anon-profit organization, you can even get free “public service”announcements on radio and television.

But there was more to the situation than that. After all, thepaper had its business section, covering the activities anddecisions of Reynolds Aluminum and other companies whosepurpose was profit, and a sports section, covering professionalsports, whose purpose most assuredly was profits. And I wasrequired to cover the movies and even print those AP stories fromHollywood by Bob Thomas blandly chronicling the activities ofmovie stars. What was the difference between these enterprisesand Riney's bar or the little roadhouse where Don, standing overhis Deagan vibes, set for slow vibrato, was putting out some musicthat I found more interesting than most of what was coming out ofthe Louisville Orchestra?

The difference was—and is—this: those enterprises buyadvertising. And so the separation of advertising and editorialdepartments that most newspapers claim as the very corner t neof their ethics is more apparent than real. And if youwewondered why rock and the most mindless kind of popular musicget extensive newspaper coverage when jazz gets so little, simplytake note of how much advertising the pop-rock industry buys.

It's a shuck, it's a rig, and if you want newspaper coverage, youcan get it in one oftwo ways: become a non-profit organization; orbuy ads. There are some exceptions, but this pattern is all toocommon in the entertainment and arts sections of Americannewspapers.

De Micheal used to say that I had a Machiavellian mind, partly,I suppose, because I had urged him to read The Prince—not inorder to practice its tactics but in order to detect them whensomeone is trying to practice them against you.

It was becoming apparent to me that Don was plagued by somekind of inner doubt. I think he was going through an awakening, asuspicion that he might have more substance than he had ever hadthe ego to believe, and that life might hold more for him than hehad thus far dared to aspire to. For what Don really did for aliving was bake buns.

He played his gigs in the evenings and afterwards went to workin a bakery—a little business which, if memory serves me “ sowned by his family—and all night long he baked hambfirbuns that were delivered next morning on contract to the WhiteCastle hamburger chain of Louisville. Remember those deliciousold White Castle hamburgers, filled with wet fried onions, thatyou bought by the sack for a dollar a dozen? Well Don used tobake those buns in Louisville and since I loved those hamburgers,God only knows how many of Don's buns I ate during the threeyears I lived there.

In I958, I was awarded a Reid Fellowship, $5,000, which inthose days was a fair sum of money, and it provided me with aluxury I had never known: a year in which to simply study musicand drama and all the things I loved, and I took my wife andnewborn son and went to Europe to do it. ‘

When I got back to Louisville the following spring, DeMichealwas still playing his gigs. Something in him, however, hadchanged. He told me that he had been taking an extension coursein sociology at a division of the University of Indiana inJeffersonville, which lies just across the Ohio River fromLouisville. Thereupon began a joking argument between us thatnever ended. “Sociology,” I used to kid him, “is the elaboratecompilation of statistics to demonstrate the perfectly obvious.”

Don had written a term paper that he asked me, with a certaindiffidence, to read. At that time I had been writing for a living for

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ten years and Don had never written anything at all.I read the paper with great interest. It was an examination ofa

jazz group from a viewpoint of sociology, and in it hehypothesized a phenomenon he called “rotary leadership”. In thecourse of an evening, he wrote, the leadership of a group keepspassing from one player to another—and the leader at any givenmoment is not necessarily the soloist.

A few weeks later, Norman Isaacs reprimanded me severely andunfairly for something that was not my fault. The anger thisinspired caused me to stay awake for seventy—two straight hours,writingjob applications to every newspaper I could think of. Andthen a friend of mine, a press agent for the Walt Disney studios,told me that Don Gold had just resigned as editor of Down Beat.Dom Cerulli had simultaneously resigned as New York editor.

I thought I could handle the New Yorkjob, and that was the citywhere I most wanted to be anyway. So my friend placed a call toCharles Suber, the publisher of Down Beat, and shoved the phoneat me. A week later I found myself not in New York but inChicago, editor of a magazine I had read dutifully as anadolescent jazz fan.

ncountered a demoralized magazine. George Hoeffer hadbuhired for the New York office, and although he was a faithfulcollector of information, George was not and never would be ajournalist. I soon learned that I had only two men to turn to—Jack Tynan, the Irish-born west coast editor who worked out ofan office in Selma Avenue in Los Angeles that is well-rememberedby the jazz musicians of California, and Ted Williams, aphotographer who had at one time been on the staff of Ebony.Both men became my close friends, and still are. Jack was a pillarof strength. An experienced and extremely skilledjournalist and afast and excellent writer, he could turn out copy in incrediblequantities to help me fill a magazine whose purpose was unclearand whose direction had been lost. And Ted Williams was myguide to the jazz world of Chicago. He was, and is, a greatphotographer, but his greatest gift to me was his sense of humor:he could always make me laugh at the idiocies I was perpetuallyencountering.

Billie Holiday died the day I arrived. Somehow I had to getcoverage of her death and scrape together an issue out of whatevermaterial was in the inventory. George Hoeffer, good jazz-lovingGeorge, was no help. The piece he sent me about Bille‘s death,\-Den probably when he was drunk, was a furious excoriation oft njustices and anguish of her life, so filled with profanity that Icouldn‘t use it. I made phone calls and wrote a new piece.

I worked eighteen hours a day during those first weeks andsomehow got the issues out. I had no assistant and no artdirector—the owner of Down Beat, John Maher, being a manwith ajust reputation for parsimony. He didn't even want to payfor photographs. He expected me to get them all from the recordcompanies for nothing.

I made the judgment that if I were ever to have the budget themagazine needed, I would have to improve its quality alone, sothat I would be one up on him. He was an Irish Catholic and aRepublican, and when John F. Kennedy, Democrat, for whomMaher had a great hatred, became the first Irish Catholicpresident of the United States, I was amused by his torn loyalties.He was a very handsome man, avuncular and charming, andalways beautifully dressed. He knew nothing about music. I-Ie wasa printer who had acquired the magazine by default when itsprevious owners were unable to pay their bill. That, by the way, isone of the little-known tragedies ofjazz.

Down Bear's special annual volume was about to be puttogether, and I had to look for material for it. I rememberedDeMicheal's essay on “rotary leadership" and I called to ask if hewould be interested in rewriting it into an article. He was, ofcourse, happy to do so. I edited the new essay and printed it. It was

Don's first published work.I then asked Don to be Louisville correspondent for the

magazine, and he began to send me tidbits of information aboutjazz activities there. One time he included an item about thelegendary blues singer Blind Orange Adams.

When the next issue came out, DeMicheal phoned me in panic.“That was a joke!” he said. “It's just a pun on Blind LemonJefferson.- Lemon-Orange, Adams-Jefferson, get it? I thoughtyou'd get a laugh and then take it out of my copy!”

“Too late now," I said, and started to laugh.When I talked to Jack Tynan on the phone, he too laughed—

and shortly sent in an item about Blind Orange Adams making anappearance in Los Angeles, which I printed. I then dropped a fewitems about Blind Orange into the Chicago copy and soon,between DeMicheal, Tynan, and me we had the non-existent Mr.Adams appearing at rent parties and other functions all overAmerica. 1.

The magazine was improving steadily, and finally, with ChuckSuber‘s help, I managed to convince John Maher that we neededmore staff. I was authorized to hire an assistant editor and-—later ]

We may live without poetry, music and art;We may live without conscience and livewithout heart;We may live without friends; we may livewithout books;But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

—Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891)

on—an art director as well. I gave the matter considerablethought. Don's knowledge of traditional jazz was a strength whereI had a weakness. I called him in Louisville and asked if he wouldbe interested in tossing up his job in the bun factory, packing uphis drums and vibes and his wife and son, and moving to Chicagoto be my assistant editor. I think he was stunned. But he said,“Yes.”

Don was an excellent assistant, He was a worker and he was alearner, and he took a great load off my shoulders. He quicklylearned the mechanics of putting a magazine together and freedme to concentrate on the broader aspects of editing it.

Everyone who had worked at Down Beat had left with aseething hatred of the magazine. I had to try to quell it, or at leastneutralize it. I asked John S. Wilson, one of the critics Irespectedmost, if he would write for the magazine again. John was only tooaware of John Maher‘s penurious ways, but he agreed to do so. Ialso asked Ralph J . Gleason to write for the magazine again—oneof my mistakes, incidentally, since Ralph had an inordinate egoand an unshakable conviction that no one in the world but heknew anything about jazz. One day I took on, as a contributingwriter, a young woman named Barbara Gardner. She was the firstwoman jazz critic on a national jazz magazine, and to the best ofher knowledge or mine, the first black. In New York I found agifted young man named Eddie Sherman and put him to workwriting a humor column called Out ofMy Head under the bylineGeorge Crater. It immediately became the best-read feature of themagazine, rivalled only by Leonard Feather's Blindfold Test.

The career of Blind Orange Adams blossomed during thoseyears. Soon there was mail about him, and De Micheal went so faras to rent a postal box and set up the Blind Orange AdamsAppreciation Society. Eventually, this would lead to a problem.

Don blossomed, too. He was tall, with a slight stoop. He had along face, sharp features, straight dark hair, and a deep-toned

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Mediterranean skin. And he had a sense of humor beyondanything he had ever revealed in Louisville.

We used to hang out with all the Chicago musicians—JohnnyPate, Eddie Harris, Art Hodes (who became a particularly closefriend of Don's), George Brunies, Dick Marx, John Frigo,Ahmad Jamal, Ira Sullivan, Cy Touff, Joe Farrell, JohnnyGriffin, and so many more. Don tended to hang with the olderschool of musicians, I hung with the beboppers, but the divisionwas not strict. Don deepened my understanding of the older stylesof jazz. But he was also close friends with John Coltrane.

One night he was hanging out with John at the SutherlandLounge. John played a quirky melodic figure that puzzledDeMicheal. After the set, he sang it to John and asked him thereason for it. “Oh that," John said, “I was just trying to get therhythm section to tighten up."

Don had lunch with Paul Desmond, Dave Brubeck, and DizzyGillespie. Both Dizzy's quintet and the Brubeck Quartet wereabout to go to Europe. Dizzy suggested that they do a concerttogether in Berlin, then tour France, Scandinavia, the Far East. . .“Ah yes," Desmond said. “Today Germany, tomorrow theworld.” DeMicheal chuckled over that for days.

At that time, Down Beat’s office was on the fourth or fifth floorof an old building at 203 West Monroe Street, just west of theLoop. A wrecking crew set to work tearing down a similarlyvenerable building across the street from us. Some of those oldbuildings were exceptionally well made, and day after day the big

Hugo Friedhofer (1901-1981), standingdrunkenly atop a table at some Bohemian SanFrancisco revel when he was 24- years old: “OhGod! 1t's taking us all so long to die!"

crane would swing its great steel wrecking ball and smash in somemore of the wall, pulverize more of the reinforced concrete. Andevery day at noon, on our way to lunch, Don and I would stop forten minutes or so among all the other sidewalk superintendents tocontemplate the slow progress of this destruction.

One day we came out to observe that the process was almostcompleted. The ruins were now only about one story high, andfalling fast. The ground around was a plane of broken brick andother rubble. And suddenly Don pulled a folded paper from theinside pocket of his suitcoat, began shoving the other gawkersaside as if on urgent business, and ran toward the ruins yelling atthe top of his voice, “Wait a minute! We've got the wrongbuilding!"

Once I wrote something in Down Beat that Charles Mingusdidn't like. Mingus was of course prone to threaten with direphysical consequences anyone who aroused his ire. He oncepulled this on Oscar Pettiford, who knocked him flat on the spot.On another occasion, he sent a threat to Oscar Peterson, whoreplied, “You can tell Mingus that if he so much as raises a fingerto me—death! Nothing less. Death!" One young saxophonist inhis group was so afraid of Mingus that he carried a holstered .32automatic on the bandstand. In truth, I liked Mingus, and some ofhis most aberrant actions struck me as the funniest possibleresponses to a world that is flagrantly insane. And I never actuallyknew him to hurt anyone. But he threatened to, and he was big.

And_so I got a call from Mingus in New York, objecting to whatI had written. He was calm at first, but his rage gradually rose, andfinally he screamed, “You're a dirty white motherfucker!" And hehung up.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, he called back. “Gene? This'sMingus. I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. We should beable to discuss this like gentlemen." And then his anger took over

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again, and he began to crescendo, and finally, with anotherscream of “You're a dirty white motherfucker!” he hung up again.

This happened several more times in the course of the morning,and always he ended with the same epithet and hung up. Finally,he introduced a variant. “I feel like getting on a plane,” he said,“and flying out to Chicago, and coming up to your office, and I'llpick you up and throw you over all the desks and then run downand catch you, so I don't break your puny back." Believe me,that's verbatim: so colorful a speech is not readily forgotten. Then,after calling me a dirty white motherfucker yet again, he hung up,and I heard no more from him.

I told De Micheal what had happened and, when Ted Williamscame by to deliver some photos, told him about it as well. Tedsuggested we go out that night to hear Oscar Peterson and forgetit. But late that afternoon, our switchboard operator said, “Gene,there was a call from the airport from a man called Mingus. Hesays he's on his way in to see you." (Only later that evening did Ifind out that DeMicheal had put her up to it.) Five o'clock arrived,and still no Mingus.

That evening Ted and Don and I went to hear Oscar at LondonHouse. After about the second set, Oscar and Ted and I *sitting in a booth, discussing l’affaire Mingus. And Ted sagdon't know what you're so upset about, Gene. I don't thinkanybody takes this seriously, except you and Mingus.” Oscarchoked with laughter. And Ted said, “Anyway, to make you feelbetter, I brought you something." And he pulled out a sap, apolice blackjack probably obtained from some cop. “Carry thisfor a while," Ted said. I did, too. But Mingus cooled offand whenI saw him next, we were on cordial terms again.

Don was playing gigs around Chicago, on both vibes and drums.And Blind Orange Adams was becoming the legend we alwayshad claimed he was.

At that time, I used to hang out a lot with Eddie Harris. AndEddie, who had grown up in the church, would sing funny satireson the blues as we rode around from one club to another, visitingfriends.

One day I got a letter from a New York label, specializing inauthentic folk music, saying that they were anxious to locate BlindOrange Adams, because they wanted to record him! I tried adesperate ploy. I wrote to the company, saying that Blind Orangedidn't trust white people. And the only ones he would deal Ifiwere De Micheal and me. He would agree to do the album on fDe Micheal and I produced it. And I planned, of course, torecord—Eddie Harris.

The company smelled a rat. They became insistent aboutmeeting Blind Orange. I can no longer remember what we did toresolve the problem, but I seem to recall that Don wrote a storyabout his death in a car crash.

Don taught me things, and I taught him things. We were a goodteam, and we put out a good magazine, with the help of JackTynan and many more. Don told somebody once that I was thetoughest son-of-a-bitch he had ever worked for—and that he hadlearned everything he knew about writing from me. I havereceived few compliments I prize as much.

And he was a good critic, because he had learned to write well,and he was a musician. You can hear him on drums in somerecordings with Art Hodes. He had his opinions—we all do~buthe was fair, and he knew his subject.

The situation for me was becoming increasingly untenable.John Maher—the Old Man, as everyone called him—wasperpetually pressuring me not to put black musicians on the cover.Once, in a fit of exasperation, I pointed that out ofthe magazine'sown popularity poll winners, 34 of 37 were black.

Maher insisted that black faces on the cover hurt magazine sales

in the south. And I said, somewhat hyperbolically, “Southernersdon't listen tojazz anyway, they listen to hillbilly music." As Donput it: “We don‘t have but two readers in Atlanta.“

One day Lou Didier, president of the magazine—a positionsomewhere between Chuck Suber, the publisher, and the OldMan—came into my office and said, “Mr. Maher says to tell you:absolutely no more Negroes on the cover."

“Then you go back to Mr. Maher," I said, “and tell himsomething for me: I quit.“

Didier went into Chuck Suber‘s office and told him he‘d have toreason with me because I was going to resign.

“Why?” Chuck asked.And Lou told him.“Then you can tell Mr. Maher something for me too," Chuck

said. “I quit too." Chuck Suber, whom I already considered afriend, gained my undying respect that day. And so the racial issuelay dormant, at least for a time.

But the issue that finally tore it for me involved our art director,Bob Billings. I had hired Bob, an extremely imaginative younga ' t, away from Playboy, and if Down Beat was a handsomergzine during the years De Micheal and l were there, the creditgoes to Bob Billings. Bob gave it a fresh look, and lam constantlylooking at magazines, even today, and seeing design tricks, littlethings with graphics, that Bob invented at Down Beat.

Maher was always talking about “broadening the base“ of themagazine—which meant covering bad music and putting peoplelike the Kingston Trio, who had nothing to do with jazz, on thecover. And he was always complaining about the budget. He wasalso always taking members of the staff to expensive lunches anddinners. He enjoyed spending money at such times, the grandseigneur dispensing his largesse to his underlings. But he was tightbeyond belief about salaries and the magazine. He didn‘t needmoney, but jazz desperately needed a good magazine.

He would call staff meetings in his office and pontificate on thethree subjects about which he knew so little: publishing (which isnot the same as printing);journalism; and jazz. We'd come out ofthese meetings, DeMicheal and I, shaking our heads. “My God,"Don said once, “it feels as if we just spent an hour in Alice inWonderland."

The Old Man went on one of his periodic cut-the-budgetUges. He told me we would have to fire Bob Billings.

ection. He told me that I would have to fire Bob Billings. Idefended Bob as an invaluable contributor to the magazine; theOld Man said he contributed nothing. (Nothing? I had laid thatmagazine out myself before Bob arrived, and the layout was afull-time. job.) He told me l had two weeks to give Bob his notice.

The NAMM convention was held in Chicago—the NationalAssociation of Music Manufacturers. Down Beat used to putout—and still does—a daily publication during the days of thatconvention, made up largely of the publicity handouts themanufacturers gave us. We always assembled the entire staff,including the advertising people, from the east and west coasts todo it.

One of the advertising men was trying to screw Chuck Suberout of his job, and since rumor had spread that I was about toresign—I had mentioned to a few people that I'd quit before I‘dfire Billings—all sorts of sly maneuvers were under way in thehotel suite rented by the magazine.

In fact I had already written my resignation. It was in mypocket. I went with Jack Tynan to lunch at London House andasked him if he wanted my job. He was, in my opinion, the manbest qualified for it. Jack said, “Are you crazy? I wouldn’t haveyour job on a platter.”

And so we headed back to the hotel. I thought about all thedirty little tactics going on. Jack said something to me and I said,

“Shut up! l‘m writing a song.““You're writing a what?‘' Tynan said.“A song," I said._ “Cool it. Let me think.“When we reached the hotel suite, Tynan entered first. I left the

door open behind me, stood at military attention, saluted, andsang a march I had composed in my head between London Houseand the hotel. I have never yet had the nerve to sing it in anightclub, although Roger Kellaway recently wrote me a chart onit, but that day, in full Nelson Eddy voice, mindful of all theskullduggeries around me, I sang it:

It's National Fuck- Your-Buddy Week.Don't hesitate to use the shaft.And during this National Fuck— Your-Buddy Week,just shove it all the way up to the haft.

During this National Fuck- Your-Buddy Week,be resolute and ruthless and you'll win.It's easy once you learn it:just shove it in and turn it.It’s National Fuck- Your-Buddy Week.

And so I left Down Beat. I went for a while to South America,and six months after that rhyming resignation I wrote QuietNights of Quiet Stars, a fairly direct translation of Antonio Carlos.Iobim‘s Corcovado. After that I wrote a lot ofsongs in New York,with Jobim and others, some of whom I had known before andsome of whom I met in Jim and Andy's. Don was my successor,and he was a good editor. He ran the magazine differently than Iwould have, but as Art Farmer said when he formed his owngroup after leaving Gerry Mulligan's, “When I‘m with Gerry, it'smy job to play for Gerry's group. In my group it‘s myjob to playfor my group." Sometimes I wrote articles for Don, and then Iworked for him.

Whenever Don came to New York, we'd have dinner togetherand laugh. Years after I left the magazine, he told me he still got anoccasional letter to the Blind Orange Adams AppreciationSociety.

One evening in Jim and Andy‘s, I said something about when lhad fired Ralph Gleason. “What'd'you mean, you fired Gleason?"Don said. “I fired Gleason. Don't you remember? Your last daythere, I asked you if you had any parting words of advice, and yousaid, ‘Yeah—fire Gleason.‘ And l did."

Frank Kofsky, in a book about jazz and black nationalism, saidthat Gleason was fired from Down Beat for being pro-Castro.Since Don is not here to correct the record, I want to do it for him.Don fired Ralph Gleason—and had I stayed at the magazine a fewmore weeks I‘d have done it myself—for being a prima donnaabout any editing done to his prose, which was usually slapdash,sometimes incoherent and sometimes even ungrammatical; forwriting over length; and above all for missing deadlines. Castrohad nothing to do with it, although I am sure Ralph circulatedthat story to explain away his dismissal.

One evening Don called me from Chicago. “The Old Man’s dead,”he said.

“So?” I said.“Is that all the reaction you have?”“Yeah,” I said. “Everybody dies.” Don had nurtured a strange

fantasy that one day John Maher would turn control of themagazine over to him. I told him at the time that he was out of hismind and should re-read Machiavelli.

Eventually Don too left Down Beat. He worked for some yearsfor an engineering magazine. I had circulated a memo to those

who wrote regularly for Down Beat saying, as best I remember,“The first purpose of a magazine is to be a good magazine,whether it is about music, sports, or collecting butterflies. If it isnot a good magazine, readable, reliable, and entertaining, itcannot serve the needs of its subject." Don learned that, andlearned it well, and so he was an extremely good editor of anengineering magazine. In later years, while maintaining a separatecareer as a musician, he worked on a magazine concerned with thecollection of objets d'art. That is not as far-fetched as it mightseem—not for a little boy who went through Louisville asking fordusty old records that nobody much valued but he.

Up to the end, he played with such musicians as Kenny Davernand Dick Wellstood and Art Hodes and in I981 appeared at theNorth Carolina jazz festival. He earned their respect as amusician, as he had earned mine as a writer and as an editor.

I never knew his wife very well and hardly knew his son at all.The world Don and I shared was one of professionalcameraderies. It was a musical world, a journalistic world, andsometimes a humorous world. Don died February 4, I982, oflivercancer. He was 53.

Mark Twain said once that every man is a genius if you can onlyplace him. I have done some things in my life of which lam proud,others of which I am not. Don DeMicheal's career is one of thethings lam proud of. I have an intense love oftalent and once, outof the corner of my eye, I thought I saw some, and l gave a man achance.

And at least Don DeMicheal didn't die baking a bun inLouisville. V

Fingers IVThe Duchess of Bedworthy is one of the major minor figures injazz history. Though not a musician herself, she had an influenceon the music‘s development that is nothing less than puzzling.

Little is known about her early life in England. Ivor Novellodenied to his dying day ever having met her. Leonard Fea'ther‘sfailure to mention her in his Encyclopedia of Jazz must beconsidered a major oversight—if it was an oversight—in anotherwise estimable and scholarly work.

She was descended on her mother's side from a chambermaid ofthe mistress of Charles the Second and through her father fromMad King Ludwig of Bavaria. Her grandfather was raised to thepeerage for smuggling Limburger cheese into England for PrinceAlbert, Queen Victoria's homesick consort, and gefilte fish forDisraeli.

Always a lover of American music, the duchess—Blinky, as shewas known to her intimates—tried when she was in her twenties toinduce the Scots Guards pipe band to march to a medley of ColePorter tunes. Later she almost succeeded in arranging a FatsWaller concert by the band of the Coldstream Guards, but at thispoint her family became incensed on learning she had beenspending weekends at Stonehenge with the members of bothbands. Despite her protestations that she was merely engaged inresearch on the fertility rites of the Druids, she was sent onremittance to America. “After all," her Aunt Mathilda said at thetime, “we had the Yanks for four years. It's only fair."

Arriving in New York, Blinky immediately made her presencefelt among the denizens of 52nd Street. In her continuing efforts inbehalf of Anglo-American relations, she offered to put up her ownmoney to record an album to be titled Charlie Parker PlaysGeorge Formby. Tadd Darrreron reportedly was writing a charton Me Auntie MabeI’s-Knickers Have Got Holes in the Back whenBird disappeared. She never heard from him again, except for apicture postcard from Camarillo.

Nothing daunted, the duchess then tried to promote an LP to be, :4

called Duke Ellington Meets Gracie Fields and another—one ofher more imaginative projects—titled Joe Albany PlaysMelachrino. Nothing came of either venture, although Duke toldher he loved her madly.

The duchess was frequently seen at Minton's and the Apolloduring this period, urging her favorites on with cries of, “I say, toomuch!" and “Far out, what?" But for several years after that, hermovements can be traced only intermittently. It is known that shespent some time in Ottawa, where her efforts to get the band oftheRoyal Canadian Mounted Police to record favorite selectionsfrom Rose Marie earned her persona non gratis status with theCanadian government.

It was during this period that the duchess became strung out onM& M's. At the age of 42, she kicked her habit on the Rockefelleralcohol substitution program, and in six months lost more weightthan Charles Mingus and Jackie Gleason combined. But the yearsof neglect had taken their toll and when she next turned up, shewas modelling for the Allbright brothers. Then, in a desperatefight to restore her dignity, she flew to Brazil for plastic surgery-a face-lift so extensive that it had the unexpected though tunwelcome side effect of raising her bustline four inchesfieoperation left her face permanently in B-fiat.

Shortly after her return from Brazil, she met Fingers Wombatfor the first time. She had dropped by the Semihemidemiquaver tocatch a set by Isabel Ringin. Settling at her favorite table with acoterie of admirers, she saw Fingers, hunched in his characteristiccadaverous curve over the keyboard, and said, “My word!"Fingers, catching a glimpse of her at the same moment, said,“Outasight."

Introduced after the set, the duchess and Fingers felt animmediate rapport and repaired to a dark corner of the club. Itwas so dark that Fingers took off his shades to see her, then putthem back on. Blinky poured out her heart to Fingers, whoseplaying, she said, she had found obtuse, remote, inaccessible andobscure—all qualities that she admired. She told him of herstruggle to overcome her M&M habit, her trip to Brazil, and heroperation.

Wild with enthusiasm, Fingers said he would like to record analbum in her honor and immediately sketched an outline on theback of an AFM envelope containing a notice that he was behindin his union dues. The tunes would include That Face, Yo '“' eChanged, Black and Blue, Smile, Elevation, Groovin' HighfllTummy Tucker Time. As a tribute to her face-lift, he told her, hewould use as a unifying motif an altered major-seventh chord— F-A-C#-E.

Blinky—Fingers was already on a first-name basis with theduchess—was aglow at the prospect. But Fingers fell into amelancholy, thence into a swoon. When the duchess asked whatwas troubling him, he said, “Money,” and showed her his contractwith Honest Records. Blinky assured him that money was noproblem: she would finance the album.

The next day, Fingers made plans to reassemble his old octet.This was to prove more difficult than he anticipated. Switzer Landhad joined the Flower Children and was now convinced he was ageranium. Tom Bone had abandoned music to become a surgeon.He had in fact made history as the first man ever to perform a pre-frontal lobotomy on himself, thus becoming the only person everto be featured on the covers of both Metronome and TheAmerican Journal of Neurology. He was no longer interested inmusic and spent his days quietly in an office with an “Out toLunch“ sign on the door.

Fingers finally elected to record in a trio context and beganrehearsals with bassist Simi Lowe and drummer WilfleRushmore.

(to be continued)

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